By Hardip Johal,Jan Pezarro

Copyright vancouversun

In an unsettling replay, Canada recently faced a similar fiasco. In 2023, Health Canada approved Zonnic, a nicotine pouch by Imperial Tobacco Canada. Imperial managed to pass it off as a quit aid under natural health product regulations because Zonnic isn’t inhaled and doesn’t contain tobacco. But with exotic flavours, cool branding and eye-level displays in convenience stores, Zonnic (and its rival, Zyn) quickly became a youth trend. TikTok “Zynfluencers” pushed the delights of “upper dekky” and “Zyn-babwe” to millions of teens.